DUBLIN, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Irish trade unions' cooperationwith a string of unpopular governments, most of themcentre-right, has helped Ireland avoid the destabilisingprotests seen in other bailed out countries.

They stayed out of Europe-wide strikes last month againstausterity that brought millions to marches in Spain, Portugaland Greece, three countries suffering most from the crisis.

But the union base has grown impatient, accusing leaders ofbeing no better than the property developers and bankers theydespise, just as talks start on a new national pay deal to keepthe industrial peace through three more years of austerity.

"A lot of them have been sleeping with the enemy," saidtruck driver and shop steward at Ireland's largest trade unionSIPTU, Michael Slattery, holding a placard demanding a generalstrike over austerity at a rare rally in Dublin last week.

"When you have the likes of (SIPTU president) Jack O'Connortaking home 180 grand a year, how can he represent a man that'sbringing home 30 or 40 thousand? It's crazy," Slattery said.

O'Connor actually earns 115,000 euros ($148,500) a year,SIPTU said, nearly four times the average industrial wage.

Other lower paid workers also bristled at the 100,000euros-plus salaries enjoyed by most union leaders and perksenjoyed by mid-level officials like free ipads and iphones. Oneunion spent recent months fighting to build Ireland's largestskyscraper.

"Just look at their wages, they are the same as thepoliticians," said Bill McLaughlin, a member of the Technical,Electrical & Engineering Union (TEEU).

He was one of a few thousand people who took part in theprotest which was led by unions but where several union leaderswere jeered.

POLITICAL TIES

Just as their high wages are a symptom of years of excessivepublic spending, the unions pragmatic approach is borne from thetradition of consensual politics in Ireland which has never beenrun along ideological lines.

The country has no prominent left-wing newspaper and fewdissenting political voices to austerity. The centre-left LabourParty, junior partners in government, are leftist with a small"l" and it was one of their own ministers who first introducedIreland's ultra low corporation tax in the 1990s.

Ireland also does not have a tradition of protest, a traitthat stretches as far back as the pivotal 1916 Easter Risingagainst British rule which initially fizzled out, partly due toa lack of public support.

Richard Boyd Barrett of the tiny United Left Alliance group,who sat in parliament as other trade unions across Europe led aday of protest earlier this month, believes that the Irishunions close ties with Labour, to which 12 individual unions areaffiliated, has blunted their response.

"There has been very little resistance by the official tradeunion movement... A section are holding back to defend theinterests of the Labour Party," said Boyd Barrett.

"Hopefully now we are beginning to see a challenge to thefailure of the trade union leadership expressed on the street."

CO-MANAGING AUSTERITY

With those leaders sitting down to begin talks with thegovernment this week on extending and achieving more savingsfrom a key public sector pay agreement, analysts are not so surethat there will be a change of tack.

The so-called Croke Park deal, negotiated almost three yearsago before Ireland was bailed out, promised no cuts in basic payin exchange for reform of working practices, ending months ofminor industrial unrest that peaked with the last general strikein Ireland in November 2009.

There was less industrial action in Ireland last year thanin any other year on record, with 5-times fewer days lost todisputes than in 2004, at the height of the "Celtic Tiger" boom.

Without the pay deal there would be industrial disorder andchaos in the public service, according to University CollegeDublin's Bill Roche, meaning neither side will want to scrap anagreement that has few parallels across Europe.

"In other countries trade union movements haven't often orever been given an opportunity to co-manage austerity in themanner that it has occurred here," said Roche, a professor ofindustrial relations.

"That's the single biggest difference... They see it asbeing better inside the tent peeing out than outside the tentpeeing in which is often what's happening in other countries."

Conscious of large-scale layoffs in the private sector thathas seen unemployment reach its highest level in almost twodecades at just under 15 percent, the majority of the union'sbase are putting little pressure on the leadership for action.

Union leaders, one of whom told Reuters two years ago thatindustrial action risked upsetting bond markets, acknowledgethat they have to do more but will not waver from theirpractical course of action.

"Do the unions have to do more? Yes but that has got to beintelligent and reflect what average workers want to do and itis not going to be shaped by hankering and shouting," said LiamDoran, head of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.

"Irish people do understand that the solution is notentirely in our own hands. We have a role to play, perhaps wehave to be more strident in that role but ultimately this willbe solved by pan-European action."